Talk-radio host Michael Savage, whom Donald Trump has credited as a key to winning the White House, dedicated his show Wednesday to asking listeners for their input on how to save an infant presidency in crisis.
“Right now, truthfully, the administration is in trouble. It’s not because they did anything wrong; it’s because of the appearance that the radical left has created,” Savage said.
“The mad, mad bees of the left are swarming and stinging.”
Savage said Trump should begin with curbing his use of social media and his reliance on family members for advice.
“Number one, stop the impulsive tweeting. It’s unnecessary, it doesn’t help. You can make mistakes when you tweet,” Savage said, pointing to tweets about the firing of FBI Director James Comey Tuesday as an example.
“I think he should calm down. I think he should withdraw from the picture for awhile. I think he should let all the president’s men stand up there and take the heat,” he continued.
“I think he should get out of the spotlight for a while.”
Savage added that the more Trump “gets defensive, the worse it looks.”
Callers to “The Savage Nation” who support Trump lamented that the president has surrounded himself with “elitists,” and one caller urged him to put “the deplorables back into the fight.”
Didn’t vote for ‘liberal Manhattan views’
The talk host, who last week launched a petition drive asking Trump to demand that Britain remove him from its travel ban, explained that he’s not “an apologist for Trump.”
“I’m here as a defender of the agenda that Trump has been trying to enact.”
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He noted Trump is no longer a powerful business titan.
“He is no longer running a family business. He can no longer run the country like the business that he’s run,” Savage said.
“He must move outside of the family, and he must move outside of the family model and become far bigger than that.”
Relying so much on his family for advice, Savage said, directing his words to Trump, “may work in a business, it may work in interpersonal relations, but it may not work with your base, which did not elect your family.”
“We elected you, and we elected you because you expressed our views,” he said.
“We did not elect the liberal Manhattan views of some of your family members, God bless them.”
WND reported Wednesday, Internet news powerhouse Matt Drudge is claiming advisers to President Trump who are leaking information to news media are “deliberately sabotaging” his presidency.
‘We voted for the agenda’
Savage said what’s at stake is “far more than just the presidency.”
“Those of us who worked so hard and voted for Donald Trump didn’t vote for him. We voted for the agenda of borders, language and culture,” he said.
“[Trump] will not be able to get any of his agenda items through Congress unless we defeat the enemies,” Savage continued. “You could say goodbye to the wall, you could say goodbye to lowering taxes, you could say goodbye to increased jobs.
“They will destroy everything.”
Savage said firing Comey was rational, because “he was an incompetent FBI director.” But the timing and the way it was done – with Comey learning of his dismissal through a TV news broadcast – were wrong, he said, providing “red meat for the left-wing lions.”
“It might have been the way he did it in business, but it doesn’t work in politics,” Savage said.
The abruptness of the firing, he said, made it look like it was “a personal thing between Comey and Trump … a street fight in Queens rather than a smart, diplomatic, political move.”
“I think it was a mistake to do this so publicly and without even telling Comey,” he said.
‘Put deplorables back in the fight’
A caller listening to WABC in New York City agreed that allowing Trump’s family to advise him is part of the problem.
The caller was a campaign volunteer for a year-and-a-half who spent a lot of time at Trump Tower.
“I’m calling because we have to put the deplorables back in the fight,” he said. “[Trump] has surrounded himself with elitists who are completely out of touch and are misleading him.”
He said the Trump family never showed up to thank the volunteers during his 18 months.
“I think they are great people, but they can’t help themselves. They were born in the ivory tower,” he said.
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Trump needs to get back to his campaign promises, the caller insisted.
“Why isn’t he opening a new factory? Why isn’t he out at the pipelines? Why isn’t he in the inner city, where they’re murdering each other?” he asked.
“That’s the agenda. The agenda isn’t the swamp,” he added, referring to Trump’s vow to “drain the swamp” of Washington establishment bureaucrats.
Savage responded: “That’s interesting, because the swamp now has engulfed him. He was going to drain the swamp, and it looks like it’s now up to his neck.”
The talk host added that if Trump “doesn’t stop listening to the inner circle that is advising him, he is liable to drown in the swamp.”
‘Not being himself’
A listener to KBET in Las Vegas, Jeff, said he learned what Trump was like through his father, who did legal work both for Trump and Trump’s father, Fred.
“I remember my father telling me that Donald was brilliant,” said Jeff, noting his father entered Harvard at age 16.
The president, Jeff said, is “not being himself.”
“He’s being held back.”
But he agreed that the president’s “counter-attack” should be done through the people surrounding him.
“He has the ability to load their lists and take them in the direction that they need to be going, instead of him tweeting in the middle of the night.”
He suggested statesmen-like figures such as Secretary of State Rex Tillerson and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should be give more of the spotlight.
Kristi, a listener to KSFO in San Francisco, said Trump should limit his travel and focus on his agenda.
“The first 18 to 20 months are critical, and he needs to buckle down. He needs to be the serious person that I think a lot of us believe and know that he can be.”
Drudge: Advisers ‘deliberately sabotaging’
Matt Drudge tweeted Wednesday that advisers to President Trump who are leaking information to news media are “deliberately sabotaging” his presidency.
He wrote: “Trump advisers leaking to media are now deliberately sabotaging presidency. Major house cleaning needed for survival.”
Minutes earlier, he sent another tweet stating: “We never got 1 damaging leak out of Obama White House staff in 8 yrs. Under Trump, they appear hourly. BIG DANGER: Small leaks sink ships!!”
Last month, Drudge joined “The Savage Nation” in-studio and discussed “trying to save this very young Trump administration.”
“I do think there’s a crisis, on many fronts,” Drudge said.
Meanwhile, a new petition drive launched last week is urging President Trump and the U.S. State Department to demand that Britain lift its travel ban on Savage.
Friday marked the eighth year of Britain’s ban, as WND reported.
On May 5, 2009, Savage, a member of the National Radio Hall of Fame, was blacklisted by Prime Minister Gordon Brown’s government, which lumped him together with Muslim jihadists and leaders of racist groups for “seeking to provoke others to serious criminal acts and fostering hatred.”
Let’s curb the kangaroo court of anonymous sources
Tim Graham